Inclusion and Segregation

From my perspective inclusion of children with disabilities is essential to the growth of our children. The school should be there to both educate and help develop students. By assuring that children are introduced to peers that may not be the same as them, we can help them appreciate differences in people. I do believe that inclusion works for everyone. I have a younger brother with muscular dystrophy who was fully included in his school, despite becoming progressively worse through these formative years. He was fully accepted as a part of the school and was so involved with his peers that he was even included in the girls basketball yearbook picture his senior year. This shows the impact that someone who is different can have on those around them. These girls as well as others will grow up with an appreciation of the value of everyone simply because they had contact with someone like my brother. However, for my brother, inclusion was done properly. I think too often a child is thrown into a class and the class and teacher are not properly prepared. Here is a short video talking about how, when done right inclusion can be very beneficial to all:

What stood out most to me is the comment made by the principal Dr. Joe Petner that "Inclusion is an easy thing to do poorly." Teachers as well as those working individually with the student must have access to information that could help the student. I understand the desire to treat these children the same as others, but to not allow teachers to access to files and IEP's only does a disservice to the disabled child and by extension the other children in the class.

While we have a plan that integrates disabled students in school, we are still seeing segregation in our schools based on race and economics. I grew up in a rural community that was all white. It was, for the most part, a farming community that rarely saw vastly differing cultures. It was not until I graduated and moved away that I was exposed to different races and cultures. I think there are still communities all over that are quite similar to my hometown. We read in the introduction to Kozol that many of the schools he visited and taught were not racially diverse. It appears, even through my own experience, that while segregation is supposed to be a thing of the past, it is far from it. Laws may make schools and districts from intentionally segregating students, but these divides remain to this day. It is important that schools and communities, such as when mine when growing up, find away to introduce people of differing races and cultures to the students. We need to assure that, even if we attend a school that is segregated, that our children do not live in a box. Perhaps the only way to fix this problem is through amending the system, both politically and in through education. This means putting money where it is most needed, lower income communities. Like so many issues of today we must first acknowledge that there is still a problem and that it needs fixing. The following link takes you to an ABC clip from early summer that gives some interesting comments from people off the streets on segregation. We see how divided we are and the differing views that we all have on this issue. (There is a short commercial before the video starts, sorry about that)

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3027288

Whether we are discussing integration on the basis of disability or on race and culture there is a need to make every effort to avoid segregating any part of our population from each other. There is too much to be gained from the interaction between people, especially our youth.